Million-Dollar Lottery Winner

A Montauk couple playing the New York Lottery’s Break the Bank scratch-off game last week did just that when they purchased a $1 million winning ticket from a vending machine at Montauk Wine and Liquors.

The couple bought the ticket about mid-week, said Shaz Finnegan, who is honoring their request not to be identified.

Guillermo Vernaza, who works the register at the store, said the man came in late last week and told Mr. Vernaza that he had gone to work that day. “He didn’t know what else to do,” Mr. Vernaza said.

As soon as the winning ticket was turned in, Ms. Finnegan and Mr. Vernaza had to pull all the Break the Bank tickets left in both the vending machine and behind the counter. The winning ticket was the last jackpot card from the game left in circulation. Once the last ticket is turned in, all tickets from the particular game have to be pulled, Ms. Finnegan said, since there is no more possibility of a customer hitting a jackpot.

“They are super people,” Ms. Finnegan said. The state rewards the sellers of jackpot tickets of Power Ball or Mega Millions, but not stores that sell winning scratch-off tickets. Ms. Finnegan said it was a good week for those who purchased tickets at the store, which is next to the bakery on the Plaza, with 405 winning tickets being sold.

This is the second time in a year that East Hampton Town has had a $1 million scratch-off winner. In January, Cynthia Goode of East Hampton won $1 million from a Million Dollar Numbers scratch-off ticket purchased at the Whalebone General Store in Noyac, according to the New York State Lottery’s website. “I was kind of in shock,” she said in a lottery release, “but I finished the day and went home and told my children.”